THE TREE OF HEAVEN

PART I

PEACE



I

Frances Harrison was sitting out in the garden under the tree that her
husband called an ash-tree, and that the people down in her part of the
country called a tree of Heaven.

It was warm under the tree, and Frances might have gone to sleep there
and wasted an hour out of the afternoon, if it hadn't been for
the children.

Dorothy, Michael and Nicholas were going to a party, and Nicky was
excited. She could hear Old Nanna talking to Michael and telling him to
be a good boy. She could hear young Mary-Nanna singing to Baby John.
Baby John was too young himself to go to parties; so to make up for that
he was riding furiously on Mary-Nanna's knee to the tune of the
"Bumpetty-Bumpetty Major!"

It was Nicky's first party. That was why he was excited.

He had asked her for the third time what it would be like; and for the
third time she had told him. There would be dancing and a Magic Lantern,
and a Funny Man, and a Big White Cake covered with sugar icing and
Rosalind's name on it in pink sugar letters and eight little pink wax
candles burning on the top for Rosalind's birthday. Nicky's eyes shone
as she told him.

Dorothy, who was nine years old, laughed at Nicky.

"Look at Nicky," she said, "how excited he is!"

And every time she laughed at him his mother kissed him.

"I don't care," said Nicky. "I don't care if I am becited!"

And for the fifth time he asked, "When will it be time to go?"